Retailers devote considerable resources to shaping a customer's experience within a retail store to make shopping easier, more comfortable, and attractive. For example, stores around the world maintain fleets of shopping carts to facilitate a customer's selection, transport, and purchase of goods within those stores. One recent development includes the stores making beverages, such as premium coffee beverages, readily available for a customer while shopping in the store.
However, retailers have struggled to provide a convenient way for a customer to handle beverages while shopping. With a conventional shopping cart, a customer must continuously hold the beverage or rest the beverage on a portion of the shopping cart that is not adapted to hold the beverage. Many times a customer may set a beverage down in the store and misplace it because the customer did not have a place in the shopping cart to store the beverage. Prior attempts at adapting a conventional shopping cart to integrate a beverage holder into a portion of the shopping cart have failed to satisfy customer preferences while also meeting a retailer's goals of reliability and appearance.
Given their high profile in the retail environment and their impact on the experience of the consumer, beverage accessories for shopping carts should better serve to meet the needs and wants of consumers, especially in fast-moving, retail cultures.